At some point

Thanks for the warning

Literally all I was thinking. Recently finished a class that was about orientalism and I can’t unsee it in media or literature now

But wouldn't this be self-orientalism, since it's written by someone in Asia? I just call it: liking a culture but not enough to actually research it lol To be fair though, they make it clear these are fictional places (and artists/writers tend to use what they know, even if it's incorrect or not much, when creating pieces)

First of all no. As it says in the name it concerns the Orient, so western Asia and north Africa. It's mostly what is called today the middle east plus a few asian countries like India.
Second even if it was made by someone whose country is in "Orient" doesn't mean said country and person can't look down on, patronize and fetishize the culture and people of neighboring countries.

Lastly "liking" a culture but not enough to research the bare minimum about it is not liking a culture. If someone said they liked you and made some art about you but it barely resemble you and depict you as inferior and in a sexual way I doubt you'd feel loved. And saying "it's just a fictional character with your face inspired by you so it's okay if it's different since it's not really you" doesn't make it better. That's not love that's condescension.

I was simply going off on the definitions I found online. Orientalism was described as the West doing it, and when I searched if it's still called that if an Asian is doing it then it was defined as self-orientalism or self-induced orientalism.
If someone made art of me like that, I'd probably say it's not my cup of tea and ignore them.
I'm not really trying to make a discussion whether it's OK to do or anything, but was merely trying to correctly call it what it is. I, personally, do think people can like stuff but not be educated in it. It's just a casual like as opposed to loving something dearly. I don't expect people to be experts in everything they like. But I, again personally, like to give artists lots of freedom instead of having lots of rules. If I don't like or agree with something, I might state I don't like it, then ignore it and don't financially support it.

Yeah, so I digged a little and it seems "Orient" which means "East" or something is different depending on who you ask. So as a European I was told it was the middle east plus like, India and China. But turns out it depends on who you ask and some part of the world put all of Asia in it, personally I find it weird to qualify Russia of being Oriental but whatever. My conclusion is it's an obsolete word.

Anyway I agree, you can like something and not be educated in it. But orientalism is a mix of fetishism and racism and I don't believe either of those things are a form of love or appreciation.

I agree with your your statement about fetishizing and racism not being love. However, it's yaoi and it, even manga in general, tends to sexualize everything- so I just took it as them having an interest in other cultures with no actual knowledge of them (but it's sexualized simply because of the genre they're writing/drawing in.) I think a large number of manga artists rely too much on sex in stories, but that's a whole other issue lol
But I enjoyed the discussion, and hope you have a good rest of your day!

Thanks, you too ヾ(❀╹◡╹)ﾉ~

Honestly that was such a wholesome and honest disscussion, learned a lot from both of you today.

Tbh I think the intention of the author wasn't bad, but their knowledge of Arabic culture was probably from mainstream media like TV show, which is Orientalism, thus it kinda makes this sth like secondhand Orientalism imo.